The Legacy of Paneau: Defiance
by Sile Crowley
Summary: Prequel to LOP: Resilience. Before leaving for his next mission, Horatio Sheridan contemplates his past and his relationship with the one person who could drive him to disobey his employer Dr. Tzymo. Occurs 2 APC.
1. Chapter 1

_Malastare: __2 APC_

My name is Horatio Sheridan, but odds are, that's not how most people know me.

To the vast majority of criminals and smugglers I've associated with over the years, I'm the Huxnel operative Jespir Carrx. Or the freelance mercenary Toraxcen. Or maybe the weapons trader Kale Kaeda; the list goes on. Only the smartest and most well-connected have figured out my true identity, but they still don't know why I do what I do. And to be honest...sometimes I don't, either.

But the past few years of my life have been focused on finding the one person who could ever understand me completely, because she basically _is _me.

I can easily remember the first day I met her. I had spent the entirety of my twelve-year life that I could remember in Coruscant's savage Underlevels, alone but aligned with a handful of other orphans who scavenged for mutual survival. I brought valuable scraps of equipment and materials to one merchant who occasionally housed me, and our arrangement eventually developed into a dependable job. He sent me out for more elusive and valuable items, and in return, I earned myself some decent weapons and a comfortable place to sleep, luxuries a lot of the other orphans I fell in with didn't have. I never disappointed him; for seven years, I always brought back what he wanted, and sometimes more...until that day.

An antique Mandalorian flashpistol was rumored to have been circling through low criminal ranks on the city-planet. Armed with my favorite blaster pistol and my patented acerbic wit, I tracked it down within three days. As small and as slight as I was, I could fit almost anywhere to hide, and even when I sat in the open, no one tightened their tongue with some random kid hanging around. If they did, though, I could always find something to hold over them, and it usually didn't have to be my blaster.

I had been following it for a few hours as it changed hands, and a perfect opportunity presented itself when an amateur trader so helpfully forgot to vary his routine. He was out in the open, carrying his newly acquired prize in a case at his side, and all I had to do was wait until he was crossing the skybridge and land one carefully placed blaster bolt on his hand holding the case...

Just as I planned, the case fell from his hand onto a condemned landing platform a few meters below. He couldn't get over his fear of being shot at long enough to get down to it, leaving me with ample time to retrieve it. Though the decaying floor crumbling underneath me was unnerving, I at least knew no one was going to chase me as I cautiously tiptoed out to it. I was so focused on my own steps that I didn't realize until it was too late that someone _was_ challenging me, slowly edging toward it at a faster pace. She was about my height, but her face was mostly covered by a helmet and a three-plated mask concealing everything else but her eyes. A waist-length cloak attached to her shoulders only briefly hid her twin blaster pistols at her hips as a rough wind breezed through, and though I knew I was outmatched, I couldn't let this one job get away. I gripped my blaster as we both closed the gap, but something about her kept me from eliminating her outright.

...it was her eyes, green with the slightest hint of brown. Like mine. Even as we stood a handshake away, our gazes were locked, and I couldn't figure out why. She looked just as curious and confused as I did, and though she moved slowly, she bent down to pick up the case. I grabbed her wrist...but I let go almost immediately.

The connection was hard to process. I suddenly felt like I had known her all my life, and judging by the surprised look in her eyes, she had just experienced the same thing. We both straightened and faced each other properly, and somehow, we spoke at the same time.

"Who are you?"

I wouldn't have answered anyone else truthfully, but for her, I had to. "Horatio," I managed to say.

Again she moved slowly, but this time she unclipped her face shield and folded it away, leaving me nearly numb as I saw the rest of her face.

"Recero."

Everything of mine she shared. Her eyes, her brow line, her nose bridge, her chin, even the way she tilted her head as we stared. I remember thinking it had to be the most _unbelievable_ coincidence...

"Are you..." her question began, but startlingly, I knew what she was asking.

"Twelve."

The small, startled gasp she took in confirmed it to me: I was standing face to face with my twin sister.

"I had no idea," she breathed in shock. I shook my head dumbly.

"Me, either."

I couldn't think of anything else to say. I remembered nothing of my family; my earliest memories involved rummaging through scrap heaps deep in the Underlevels, almost always by myself. But the only thing I could think of as we looked at each other was that even though we didn't know where we had come from or why we had been separated, we had been brought back together for a reason.

We needed each other.

She tried and tried to convince me to take the blaster, but I refused every time. She told me it looked like I needed it more, which, on reflection, was somewhat insulting, but at that time, I was only wondering what kind of punishment she'd receive for not returning with it. At worst, I knew I'd end up on the street again without shelter, but I'd survive. I knew nothing of her employer; how could I condemn her to a fate I couldn't fathom?

Reluctantly, she left with it, but not before making a promise to me.

"We will find each other again," she pledged, "and next time, it'll be me who helps you."

I thought that would be the last I'd ever see of her. It was all I could do to keep from following her out of intense and somewhat compulsory curiosity, but if she was as good as I was, and she very well could have been better, she'd know I was tailing her. Again, I couldn't risk potentially causing her harm at her employer's hand, so I simply made my way home, empty-handed but fostering a rigid determination to find her some other way.

How I ended up staring at her fourth floor window across a lifeless stretch of roughly three hundred meters once more, but hadn't been allowed to talk to her, I'm still not sure. So much had happened in sixteen years, but what did I know of what had happened to her in that time? I had gotten the most recent information from Tzymo, whose complex I was so coincidentally being 'stored' in while I awaited his signal to begin my next mission, but that intel was superficial at best.

Some time ago, she had married the Hunter Lead, Najin Roeken, but she dropped off all channels a few months before his death at the hands of an enemy of the Guild. I had heard that the Jedi Master Aalon Noor had saved her life after their transport was shot down over Ambria, and he delivered her son when she went into labor. She even named her boy after him, but again she disappeared. I grudgingly had to take a job with Tzymo to find her again, and when he filled me in on her current condition, her sudden illness that he had taken upon himself to 'cure', I could feel the cruel noose of irony tightening around my neck the longer he kept me away from her.

But this time, back on Malastare again, I had made my decision. Tzymo wasn't going to control me anymore.

...I was going to take up a vibroknife and cut myself loose.


	2. Chapter 2

Though Malastare's double gravity hadn't yet gotten to me, the desert-dry air was ruining my focus as I followed a rocky ridge toward Recero's building. Hunched over as I moved, I breathed quickly and shallowly, and I could hardly keep my throat wet enough to prevent a cough that would give me away. Darkness had fallen over three hours ago, and Tzymo's compound was mostly empty and shut down for the night, but I still had to stay hidden. I had made myself an undetectable escape hatch over the past few months, carving a small rectangular hole in a weakened outer wall that was easily covered up by equipment crates strewn across the complex. Tzymo monitored anyone entering and leaving through the front and rear doors, and surveillance cams kept watch over the majority of the commons areas inside, but I found one lone sweet spot the cameras couldn't reach. With everything else in my jacket pocket that I'd need to get into the guarded tower across the way, I was well-prepared for Tzymo's defenses.

A single pair of guards stood at the main entrance under a weak glowlamp mounted above the door, but they weren't my main concern. I had learned a long time ago that the most easily seen security measures were usually only decoys. That was another lesson Recero had taught me.

Before I joined the Huxnel, I spent a few years as the weapons smuggler Kale Kaeda for a crime lord-wannabe. He had been making a valiant but ultimately futile effort to prove to the Hutts he was worth doing business with, but something always managed to go wrong. Some lower officers of the Imperial Remnant had been sniffing around Hutt Space for a few months, and eventually a large shipment of DC-17 hand blasters was 'diverted' before my employer received it. Barely sixteen but tasked with finding it and retrieving it, I did what I could.

I spent the better part of a week trying to track down the shipment, but I kept running into dead ends. Only after I started to follow a hunch about an old retired Imperial general did I finally begin making progress. But my curiosity and inexperience quickly turned against me.

One lone compound on the desert wastelands of Boz Pity was seemingly insignificant. It wasn't heavily guarded, even though more than a handful of ships arrived and left every day. It was the size of the traffic, not the complex itself, that piqued my interest: gigantic cargo haulers that could've delivered the one of the Death Star's superlasers came and went regularly. What exactly was being exchanged at this small compound that looked like it could have easily been smashed by the haulers landing beside it?

If someone was 'diverting' any kind of contraband in the region, my bets were on whoever was running this place.

And I was right.

Sneaking up to such an isolated building wasn't exactly easy. I spent a lot of time with a tan cape covering me as I laid in the scorching sand, which was part of the reason I had avoided desert planets at all costs since. I could feel my throat burning even more as I stared at Recero's building, though Malastare was nowhere near as warm as Boz Pity at night; still, the memory was near enough to my present situation that I had to seriously concentrate to keep from coughing and unintentionally alert the guards at the door to my presence.

The security I had seen around the Boz Pity compound hadn't been much more than one bored guard who cleared the landing haulers from a control room just inside. Their cargo ramps opened directly into the loading bay when they landed, and a carefully orchestrated flurry of activity began as dozens upon dozens of crates were simultaneously moved in and out. Nothing was marked and everything looked the same, but hauler droids swept about in predetermined formation, taking the designated crates to their destinations. Without any fanfare, the haulers closed up and powered up, blasting sand away from their repulsors as they took to the gray sky once more. It repeated more times than I could remember, and a precise standard hour always passed between landings. That hour was my best opportunity, and feeling confident I could outwit the one guard, I went in blindly.

The only time I had seen such an intricate, complex system of automated conveyors and tracks was in the bowels of Nar Shaddaa's garbage hauling businesses. Say what you want about the irony of such a polished machine handling the planet's waste, but Nar Shaddaa wasn't dirty on account of trashed streets. Similarly, this system descended down into the ground, presumably to a larger holding and processing area. Whatever was in these thousands of crates on Boz Pity was valuable enough to be moved quickly and efficiently, and I was beginning to get nervous. Something was missing...

Better security.

I don't even remember hearing the sentry droid's buzzing, but in the few waning seconds of consciousness as I fell paralyzed from a stun bolt, I saw its shiny black, spherical plating hovering behind me. At least two more were coming to join it, but in retrospect, it could have been the same one multiplied a few times by my blurring vision.

Either way, I was very sure I was awakened by two sets of fists as I found myself suspended from the ceiling by a set of stun cuffs, being punched from either side.

No questions, no talking, not even an introduction. Reduced to one eye that wasn't swollen shut, I could only take in what I saw in between attacks: a Zabrak and an Iktotchi took turns swinging at me while an old human, who unmistakably was the Imperial general Parstin I had suspected, looked on from behind them. The room was small, not much unlike a prison cell, and it was filthy like one, too. The beating continued until Parstin grew bored, I guess, and the three left after unchaining me, though they left the stun cuffs on just in case. Like I was going to walk out of there, no problem.

I had been reduced to a scrawny, breathless, bleeding pile of agony, certain they had bruised every bone on all sides, and I could only guess what they planned to do with me next. I had no idea how long I had laid there, wanting to writhe in pain but without the energy to, before the door opened again. I tried to plead for my life, bargaining with the nonexistent leverage I had, but all that came out was weak, moaning garble.

"Horatio," a sweet, familiar voice said as a gentle hand touched my broken face. "What have they done to you?"

She hardly looked any different. Unsure if I was hallucinating or not, I stared in disbelief for several seconds...but she never went away.

"Recero," I somehow managed to say with a fractured jaw, but she immediately shook her head.

"Shhh, it'll be okay. I'm going to get you out of here. Come on, quickly."

I don't remember much of how we ended up getting out of the complex, but amazingly Recero managed it, and me, without a hitch. The next couple of days were fairly foggy, but it was the most time I had spent with her, and if I focused well enough, I could remember our discussions.

"I told you we'd find each other again," she said with a small smile as she dabbed at my busted lip with a bacta-soaked cloth.

My head was pounding and I could still only see out of one eye, but looking around, I was laying on the floor of a crawlspace of a room, littered with power cells, macrobinoculars, and ration bar packs, but nothing personal. A narrow, horizontal hole had been carved out of the wall to look out onto the quiet streets of Rishi, but I held those questions for later.

"How _did _you find me?"

She shrugged slightly. "To be honest, I didn't know it was you that I was going to find." When I furrowed my brows in confusion, and in pain, she continued. "I had heard that Parstin had taken a prisoner, and if someone was going to try to infiltrate his compound...I thought that maybe they were important enough to have a bounty on them."

"...you were going to break out his prisoner to collect a bounty?"

Again she shrugged. "It was worth a shot. But I found you instead. Are you complaining?"

I weakly ran my tongue over my split lip as I shook my head. No, not at all.

"How did you get past his security?"

She leaned away from me as she grabbed something out of my range of sight. "An ion grenade, of course, disabled every single one. His sentry droids are a holdover from his days with the Empire. Makes him predictable." Returning to me, she carefully pressed another cloth to my swollen eyelid, generously covering the gash just under my brow with more bacta. "The rest was easy."

I gave her a look as best I could with one eye.

Instead of expressing my annoyance with her, I guess I came across as pathetic instead. She frowned. "They really worked you over."

"Wasn't hard," I said hoarsely as I lifted up my hand to my face. I hadn't noticed she had bandaged it where the stun cuffs had sliced into my wrist. "Not much surface area to cover."

"What were you doing in that compound, Horatio?"

I rubbed my good eye that had started to sting from the strain. "Trying to steal back some weapons."

"What kind of weapons?"

Realizing what she was asking for, I stopped and looked back up at her. She was serious. "You're _not_ going back in there. He'll have tripled his security by now."

Though she looked like she might have continued arguing, she sighed and nodded, conceding. "Fine. What are you going to do?"

"Right now, I'd like to keep breathing."

"You know what I meant."

But I wasn't joking. "Seriously. I want to be sure my vital organs are still working. I'll figure it out later."

She nodded again, lightly pressing her fingers into my neck to evaluate my heart rate. Apparently it was acceptably normal, because she sat back quietly and looked tired herself.

"You're hunting now," I observed aloud.

"Yeah," she answered blankly as she looked around her room absentmindedly. I didn't say anything else, but she went on, anyway. "I got paid more for doing less for that lowlife back on Coruscant."

"I remember. You were well-equipped."

She smiled in appreciation of the compliment, but it faded quickly. "Why did you let me take that blaster?"

I licked my dry lips. "Because I knew that the worst that would happen to me was that maybe I wouldn't have a place to sleep that night."

The expression on her face was both fearful and grateful at the same time. "You saved my life. I had missed my opportunity with that last buyer, and I had lost him. If you hadn't stopped him, I never would have found it, I never would have found you...and I wouldn't be here right now."

"And neither would I."

Four years spent wondering, second-guessing, 'what-if'ing...but I had been right. She needed her jobs to survive; mine were little more than a hobby. The gratitude in her eyes was telling enough, but she leaned over me and kissed me lightly on the forehead, too. "Thank you."

I just remember nodding, but most everything else after that was lost in a concussive haze as I recovered. I had to quickly drop the name Kale Kaeda while carefully making my way toward the Core again, and within a few months, I found myself employed with the Huxnel as Jespir Carrx.

And where was I sent?

Tatooine. Another desert planet.

As far as harsh living conditions go, I'd prefer someplace like Kamino. Hoth. Rhen Var. Anywhere but desert.

Malastare at least had regions of climate variation. And vegetation.

The guards outside Recero's building were changing. I had a narrow window of time to get to the side entrance before they conducted their sweep, and pulling my grappling spike launcher from my pocket, I began my move. The glowlamp's light barely reached a meter from the door, and without any other lights in the backdrop behind me, I was nearly invisible. The guards were distracted with each other, and just as I pressed myself against the wall, I activated my next diversion with a quick signal sent from my wrist link.

A modified mouse droid was skittering about in the sands closer to Tzymo's compound. I could hear the guards discussing the noise they heard, and soon they would be investigating. Once I heard their feet shuffling through the sand, too, I fired my grappling hook and scaled the wall to the fourth floor. The ventilation grate's alarm was easy enough to disable with a scrambler hooked up to its sensors, and I climbed inside it and replaced the cover before the guards had even returned to their post.


	3. Chapter 3

Crawling through the ventilation shaft meter by meter had been uneventful so far, but knowing Tzymo's thoroughness that bordered on paranoia and obsession, I had to keep my guard up. I hadn't set off any alarms that I could tell, and though that didn't mean anything, I was still somewhat optimistic. Tzymo would most certainly rain hell down upon me the moment he finds out I talked to my sister against his will, and...well, maybe I shouldn't get ahead of myself just yet. I still had to _get _to her.

Though among some of the oldest buildings on Malastare, it was in remarkably good condition, if its ventilation system was any indication. Cool, moist air was a welcome reprieve from the elements outside, but it seemed to be exceptionally cool, almost freezing the further I went in. The durasteel shaft was numbing my hands and kneecaps as I moved along, but I didn't have much more to go. Just one more turn before I'd encounter the next snare...

The building's schematics were easy enough to come by, but figuring out how to get around the security Tzymo had installed after taking Recero on as a special interest had cost me some time. She owned the entire building under the name R.S.R. after inheriting it from her husband Najin Roeken, who also happened to be the Bounty Hunter's Guild leader while he was alive. Her connection to the Guild was what had Tzymo hooked, but near as I could tell, the Guild hadn't bothered her at all since Najin's death. Still, Tzymo devoted more than a dozen of his researchers to figuring out how to cure her from some mysterious disease she had caught on Ambria, and that many more guards protected the whole complex.

And after coming to the end of the ventilation shaft and disabling a particle shield with a well-placed ion blaster bolt, I'd have only a thin grate separating me from the majority of Tzymo's guards lined up for the night watch on Recero's floor. This time, though, I could thankfully avoid confrontation. Last time was a totally different story.

I had to start, and survive, a cantina brawl to find my target.

For my first solo assignment since aligning with the Huxnel four years prior, I was forced to travel to Tatooine as the mercenary Toraxcen. The only information I had been given was that my target was going to be disrupting a deal Admiral Azira wanted to go smoothly between a Huxnel agent and an informant. The meeting was taking place in a secluded cantina in Mos Gamos, and I had to create a distraction: somehow, I had to deter the target long enough so I could identify him among the patrons before he made his move. Rumor was, only the informant's crew kept the place running, so a new face was cause to stay alert. If the new guy stirred up the group, whoever had it in for the informant would most likely shy away from the activity and take his opportunity while everyone else was occupied. It was a gamble, but if I could play it just right, I'd be able to walk out alive and successful. Take a few too many blows and miss my target, I'd be forced into...an early retirement, of sorts.

I had never both dreaded and desired to drink at the same time.

I knocked back a few glasses of the local ale to blend in as I sized up the quiet but menacing crowd, though I quickly discovered it served two more purposes, as well. Not only did it bolster my resolve to follow my plan and begin the fight in the first place, it also deadened the subsequent blows I took. I stopped feeling the fiery burn of my jaw dislocating after the third or fourth strike. It was hard to keep count.

I wasn't far into the fight when the scuffling was broken up by an enraged woman's voice.

"_Enough!!_"

Whoever had hold of my arms wrenched them both behind me and locked me in a choke hold as the crowd parted. It was a good thing he had my airway compressed, otherwise the gasp of surprise I would have taken in could have further compromised my situation.

She looked furious.

"I'll deal with him," she commanded with a severe edge, "_outside_."

Obediently, I was dumped out the back door into a dusty, empty alley, shoved against the opposite wall. I was only just able to turn my face before I met its rough exterior, receiving a deep abrasion that ran from my temple to my cheek. Regaining my balance, I turned to face her as she approached and drew a blaster from her hip holster I had seen before.

"What the _hell_ did you think you were doing??" she spat angrily, apparently not caring that anyone within a two-block radius could hear her. "My guys would have killed you within _minutes_! Do you have _any_ idea what you just did, what kind of problems I'm going to be dealing with for _weeks _now?"

I blinked, barely keeping a drip of blood out of my eye as I struggled to draw in a decent breath. "_Your_ guys...you're the informant?"

Recero looked taken aback, too, if not afraid. "...you're Huxnel?"

I nodded, and her anger had completely transformed into worry. But if she was the informant whose crew I had just roughed up, then... "You have a kouhun among your men, Recero," I warned quietly. A stealthy, lethal assassin, probably resembles the creepy centipede...

Perplexed, she furrowed her brows. "Who?"

I could only shake my head. "I don't know. I was just told he'd try while you were with our agent."

Though she looked a little haunted as she thought, a wave of realization passed over her face, bringing a small smile of appreciation to her face. "You started that fight on purpose."

I ran my thumb under my bleeding nose and shrugged. "Something to do in my spare time."

"Well, it _was _your turn."

I arched my eyebrows. "You're keeping score?"

"I will now," she nodded. "So long as we're not even." Just like before, she looked over my cuts and bruises with a pitying gaze, and holstering her blaster at her side, she pulled a clean cloth from her pocket to begin dabbing at my temple. If only she had some bacta in her pocket, too...

"Wait," I said after a moment, doing the calculations "...we _are _even."

Again she smiled and nodded. "I'm sure that will change soo--"

I wasn't even aware of what had happened until after it was over.

A brief gleam had caught my eye from the rooftop of the building next to the cantina, and my reflexes continued the rest. In simultaneous motion that seemed to take an eternity, I pushed her away from me with quick force while also pulling her blaster from her hip, firing off a single bolt in exchange for the one that seared through my shoulder...in the path of which Recero's head had been just a second earlier. My bolt landed the would-be assassin square in the face before he could move, and he toppled off the rooftop deeper into the alley with nothing more than a limp thud.

The shock of the pain I wasn't prepared for stole my breath, and after she recovered, Recero was quick to tend to me. "Sit down, sit down!" she demanded, supporting my arm as she helped me slide down the wall to the sandy ground. It would be another eternity before I could force myself to breathe again.

"Do you know him?" I asked quickly through clenched teeth, looking down the alley toward her attacker. She didn't even have to leave my side to be certain.

"Izet," she said with a distinct bite, "a spice dealer. He had ample reason to keep me from that deal..."

"We're...getting into spice?"

Her eyes and her voice had suddenly become sad and pained. "...I'm getting out."

For some reason I hadn't noticed it until then, but looking at her properly as she knelt beside me, I could tell that one of her eyes was darker than the other, discolored as though the white itself had been bruised. A pocket of yellow and green-tinted skin just below her eye was unmistakable, too; it had been some time since, but someone had given her a black eye.

"...Recero?"

But she shook her head. "You've done enough for me. It's my turn to help you now."

Though it had taken some nimble improvisation on both our parts, her crew that I had exchanged fists with thankfully forgave my intrusion after she praised their swift action on her behalf. It was definitely awkward being taken to the nearest med station by the same surly Gran who had taken the first swing, though I probably could have survived the blows; it was the blaster bolt to the shoulder that was most significant. I remember waking up suspended in a bacta tank and seeing Recero's silhouette keeping watch just outside, but...there were no bacta tanks on Tatooine. When they brought me out, she was gone, and I was alone on the Mid Rim world of Ando.

I had been successful in my mission, so I could return to the Huxnel without fear of punishment, but after that incident, I began formulating strategies to break my service to them. The only way others had gotten out was death - on the job, at their superiors' hands, or at their own. But I had something else in mind, though there were more than a thousand ways it could go completely wrong before I had any idea.

I'd have to bring the whole group down, and that would take help I didn't have...at least, not willingly.

I guess my activity showed up on Tzymo's scope when I started talks with Joshua Redgrave, a New Republic squadron leader. He had ties to Paneau, the Outer Rim planet where my former partner Killian R'Daw had defected. I had to reconnect with her to enact some pieces of the puzzle, and that also fed into Tzymo's ability to control me. It wasn't long after I set my plan into motion that Tzymo approached me and offered me information about Recero I had been desperate to find, but in exchange for the Huxnel's devastatingly harmful virus and its antidote. I got him his virus, and he gave me the information...with strings attached.

I hadn't begun to feel the stress of my entire mission weighing down on me until I began to cut at the grate on the front of the vent, knowing that one wrong move or noise would alert the guards standing just meters away on either side of the hall. They'd be making one last sweep before they shut down the floor for the night, and I would have mere seconds to get to Recero's room...

The guards began moving, and as soon as the last one turned the corner, I moved quickly but deliberately, making minimal noise as I slid out onto the floor. I hung the grate back over the opening, though if anyone looked closely, it'd be obvious. But if I timed it right, they'd be leaving down the other end of the hall and wouldn't have reason to come back.

Again moving fluidly, I stepped over to Recero's door and...was startled as it immediately opened for me. I looked around warily, but with little time before the system would be shut down, I went inside further, hardly able to hear anything else in the room as my heartbeat pounded loudly in my ears.


	4. Chapter 4

Though I didn't know how, it was even colder inside Recero's room. I thought I'd be seeing flakes of frozen moisture falling from my billowing breaths if it was much colder, but the air seemed even heavier, almost insulating, rather than biting cold. In the dimly lit hall, it was like walking through a thick, invisible fog that almost drowned you, but at the same time, it felt...good in an unnatural way. Was there something being mixed in with the room's enviro controls?

Behind a frosted transparisteel door I was walking by, I saw and heard a toddler playing on the floor in a bright room. It had to be Recero's son, my nephew, Aalon Roeken. A little over two years old, he was babbling as he picked up a toy and another, showing them to someone I couldn't see on the other side. Though concealed in the darkness on my side of the door, I froze where I was. Surely they didn't keep the kid in this weird atmosphere; he was too small to stay warm enough, and he was definitely too small to take care of himself in that room alone. Who was he conversing with in there?

An astromech's whistling answered my question, and as it rolled up to Aalon, he showed it the toy again, happily explaining in gibberish as the droid beeped again and watched. He seemed to enjoy the interaction, as though the droid and he were speaking in their own language only they could understand. I could tell the boy had dark brown hair and the droid had orange panels, and though it was hard to see much detail, he seemed to be healthy... Apparently, Tzymo was telling the truth about him.

But what of Recero? I glanced at Aalon once more before I moved on further into the room, but I couldn't hear anything that would guide me to her. No movement, no talking, not even soft breathing. Panic began to set in; if she wasn't even here, and I had made such a damning move against Tzymo for nothing...

"Horatio," her quiet, weak voice floated through the darkness beside me. I turned to look, but it was another few seconds before my eyes adjusted to the difference, and I finally saw her.

She hadn't changed at all.

It had been five years since I had last seen her on Tatooine, but she had contracted her disease over two years ago, and it had reduced her to laying nearly motionless on a bed under a light sheet. If it wasn't for her eyes, as sharp as they had always been, following me as I stepped closer to her, I would have thought her frozen to death.

She gave me a small, teasing smile, though. "Took you long enough."

Even in the silence of the room, I could barely hear her voice. If I hadn't been looking at her, I wouldn't have understood her at all. I hadn't realized how hard it would be to see her so weak...

It took me a few moments to find my voice. "I've been busy."

"I know," she answered, still smiling. Her speech was slow, careful to not waste energy. "I've heard a lot about your...missions, and those Jedi you keep helping."

Though the air was thick, I struggled to swallow with a dry throat. I looked down and away from her, strangely...embarrassed that she knew about it. I had never set out to help them as I had, but I always ended up crossing paths with them and doing more without thinking about it. For some reason, I felt obligated to...because it was the right thing to do.

Without hearing movement, I felt her hand grip mine at my side, and looking back down at her, I met her gaze and saw nothing but understanding in her eyes. Her hand was as cold as I thought it would be, but the strength of her grasp surprised me as she tugged my arm, compelling me to sit on the bed beside her. I hesitated for fear of hurting her somehow, but she took my reluctance for something else.

"Don't worry," she said as her smile faded, "I'm not contagious."

I wouldn't have cared if she was.

I sat down, still holding her hand as I looked her over. Was her disease destroying her nerves and muscles so she couldn't move? She was so still...

"Stop looking at me like that, Horatio," she commanded with surprising intensity that caught me off guard. I couldn't formulate a response, so she continued. "You caught me on a bad day. I've actually been getting better."

"_This_ is better?"

"The medication Tzymo's had me on does well during the day. I can even hold my son again."

I clenched my jaw. Who knows what kind of terrible concoction Tzymo was forcing her to take...

"He's not helping you, Recero. I want to get you away from him."

Her eyes suddenly looked tired. "He's done nothing but good for me and for Aalon --"

"He's using you," I interrupted, more angrily than I had intended to. "He's just studying you long enough to get what he wants from you. So what does he want?"

She looked away, ashamed. "He hasn't asked...but I'm guessing he's after the Guild."

"All the more reason for me to get you out of here." When she still gazed beyond me, I continued. "I know a doctor who will find out what's wrong and actually try to make you better. He'd expect nothing --"

"You've burned that bridge, and you know it. Dr. Vil isn't going to work with you anymore."

I opened my mouth to argue, but I couldn't. Again, I was surprised by what she knew, so I tried another approach. "Then I'll find someone else. I'm not going to let Tzymo ruin you."

Before she could respond, the mechanical whirring of rolling servos caught our attention. I turned to see an orange-paneled astromech, the same one I had seen earlier with her son in the first room, rolling toward me with its shock arm extended and already sparking to attack me.

"Bex, no," Recero weakly defended me by holding up her palm to the droid, making him stop just shy of my leg. "It's okay. This is Horatio, my brother."

If the droid had had eyelids, he would have blinked in confusion. He beeped a hesitant question at Recero as if to make her repeat what she had said. She nodded.

"I told you," she continued lightheartedly. The droid beeped again and retracted the shock arm, whistling repentantly as it turned to me again. I arched an eyebrow.

"Bex?"

"B3-X4," she answered. "He used to be...Najin's..."

I could hear the pain in her voice despite its softness, and her eyes became distant and glossy; she was still in mourning over losing her husband.

"...I'm sorry."

For a moment, I felt stupid, offering my sympathy for her grief I knew nothing of. But she looked up at me again, and a small smile brightened her eyes. "He reminded me of you. You would have liked him."

Unsure of what more to say, I remained quiet. Bex whined and beeped again, commanding Recero's attention.

"Bex is the reason that I still get intel," she explained quietly. "He can get around Tzymo's surveillance and keep me up to date on the galaxy. It's how you got to me so easily: I had Bex turn off the alarms you would have set off."

Half impressed, half skeptical, I furrowed my brows. "How did you know which ones I'd trigger?"

Her eyes sparkled briefly with a wry grin. "Because I would have gone the same way you did. You were careful, but not careful enough. Tzymo knows nothing, though. I've made sure of it."

If my face was warming with a humiliated blush, I couldn't tell. I had long since lost feeling on any exposed skin, but her hand squeezed mine again, reminding me I was still holding it.

"I know Tzymo gave you orders to keep away from me," she continued somberly. "But here you are, trying to help me." Again her eyes glistened as she shook her head and continued even more quietly. "You can't. Not the way you want to."

I stared, dumbfounded. "...I don't understand."

She only shook her head again, repeating, "You can't."

I was beginning to think that it wasn't a matter of my abilities, but that she wasn't going to allow me to help, and it was making me angry. "Give me a reason," I demanded. "Give me a reason, or I'll do it anyway."

Her expression didn't change, though, despite my harsh tone. She must have expected my reaction.

"I need you to do something else for me," she answered calmly. "You're the only one I can trust with this."

Though I was still frustrated, I released a long breath to settle myself. At least she wasn't denying me outright. I could still do something for her, so I waited patiently to hear what she needed.

A distant look returned to her eyes, and as she closed them briefly, a tear fell across the bridge of her nose, landing and instantly freezing on the pillow under her head. I brushed away its trail on her face, assuming she didn't have the energy left to expend.

"Najin never even knew, but...Aalon is not my first son."

All my anger immediately dissipated as she continued.

"I was involved with a spice dealer several years ago, but it was short lived. He was...violent, aggressive, and I couldn't get away from him fast enough. I was already pregnant, though, when I left him, and he sent his thugs after me constantly. More than once, I barely escaped with my life, and the worst attack was only a few weeks before he was born... Max..." she trailed off, momentarily lost in thought. But she looked back up at me after a pause, seeming to have collected herself.

"Do you remember when we met in Mos Gamos?"

Instantly my shoulder began throbbing from the memory. "Hard to forget."

She nodded. "Max was two weeks old. I had had enough of his father's vile tactics, so I was giving your agent everything I could about his business, his routes, strategies..."

Thinking back to our encounter, I remembered the bruise she had on her eye. She hadn't explained it then, but now it made sense, and my anger was returning.

"I raised Max for two years, always on the run so his father couldn't find us. But he did. He punished me for what I did...nearly killed me...and he took Max. I never stopped looking, but I haven't been able to find them. I...I don't even know if Max is still alive."

My jaw was clenched so hard I thought it might have melded together. Shaky breaths escaped me as my anger escalated, and my vision blurred until I blinked it away to focus on her again. I would have torn the man apart with my bare hands if he had walked into the room just now.

"Who is he?"

She hesitated. "Soran. You've worked with his brother, Joshua."

I blinked. "Joshua Redgrave?"

Again she nodded. "Soran shed his last name years ago, so his connection to the Redgraves isn't well known. But Horatio, listen to me," she warned as she tugged my arm once more, forcing me to lean closer to her. "You _have _to be careful. Soran is just as connected and resourceful as Tzymo. While Tzymo is meticulous and methodical, Soran is vicious and brutal. You can't take on his entire organization, and I don't want you to. All I want to know is if Max is okay, that's it. Do you understand?"

I nodded, but there wasn't going to be anything keeping me from inflicting as much pain as I could on Soran. I had already decided that.

She seemed content with my response, and a relaxed expression softened her face. "Max will be seven in a few days. If you do find him...I think you'll recognize his eyes."

I tightened my grip around her hand. "I _will_ find him, Recero, I promise."

She nodded weakly. "I know you will."

Her energy seemed to be fading quickly, even as I watched her, but I didn't want to leave her. I was frantically running any and every kind of escape plan I could think of through my mind to devise a way to get her away from Tzymo and shelter her somehow, but each one stopped with the thought, _Tzymo is probably expecting that_. I had never felt so ignorant, so incompetent and powerless to help her, but if I could find Max, I could at least bring her a small bit of hope and comfort. Maybe her rescue could come later.

"Bex," she called for the droid feebly as she closed her eyes. He rolled up beside us again and whistled inquisitively.

"Make sure he gets back alright."

Bex beeped in affirmation, rolling back slightly to escort me away. I still wasn't ready to go.

"Horatio," she breathed, keeping me at her side a few moments longer. Her eyes remained closed, but I still felt her fingers tightly curled around mine. I waited, holding my breath so I'd be able to hear her...

"No matter what you think...you _are_ a good man."

Slowly, her grip released, and she slipped into a peaceful sleep, still just barely moving as she breathed lightly.

Behind me, Bex beeped urgently, extending a pinch grip to pull at my pants leg. I could tell it wasn't impatience, but a warning that I had to leave quickly to avoid detection. I gently tucked her hand underneath her covers, and with one long last look, I released a shaky breath and followed Bex through a completely different path than what had gotten me there in the first place.


	5. Chapter 5

_You _are_ a good man._

Her words reverberated in my mind, louder and louder the longer I sat still. Earlier, Bex had quickly gotten me out of Recero's building through an isolated underground tunnel that put me about half a kilometer away from Tzymo's compound, and I had about ten minutes before another guard patrol came by. It was a long, nerve-wracking walk alone in the pitch black of Malastare's night, but back inside the empty warehouse was even more tense. What if Recero hadn't disabled all of the trips and alarms Tzymo had planted in anticipation of my disobedience? I kept envisioning the entire complex exploding in a spectacular fashion, with only me inside...or maybe dioxis gas being pumped through the enviro system to slowly poison me in my sleep. Tzymo was creative; he'd spare no expense to have me put down for good. I knew too much.

I am a good man, she had told me. But after thinking about it, how would she know? She said she knew about my missions, presumably with the Huxnel, and my encounters with the four from Paneau. How could she come to that kind of conclusion with all that damning evidence? I'm far from good. I'm one of the worst people I know.

So my conscience had gotten the better of me a few times. I knew I shouldn't have gotten involved with Mand Natiyr again, but I did anyway, and only got more trouble for it. And later signing on with Tzymo should have registered as willingly boarding a ship to hell, as evidenced by the introductory mission I had to complete for him, but I was blinded by the chance to find Recero again. My "good" had first come from petty wrongs, so the way I see it, they cancel each other out. At least, sometimes they do. More often than not, the "good" was never enough to negate the original offense, no matter how hard I tried.

I wasn't one to forgive easily, so I didn't expect it from others. But I had to find Max for Recero, or I'd never forgive myself. Where was I supposed to start, though? Soran was Joshua Redgrave's brother, so I might be able to get something from him. He owed me that much after risking my life a hundred different ways to get him the intel on the Huxnel the New Republic wanted. Joshua was a New Republic Commander, leader of the Rallye Squadron, and last I heard, they had been in the Paneau system helping out with some kind of Huxnel remnant problem there. If there was anything to get from someone in that sector, I'd begin my hunt by talking to Joshua.

Of all the places to go back to.

That's where my next mission for Tzymo was supposed to be, too. I was still waiting for specifics, which was why I was spending so much time in his Malastare compound. If Tzymo hadn't had me on such a tight leash, I would have been long gone before he could stop me, before he could find me...

But I stayed, foolishly hoping he wouldn't find out about my infraction. If I acted normal, I thought, he wouldn't get suspicious.

Or would he?

Surely he'd have expected me to do something by now in regard to my sister, so I was surprised I didn't yet have a mouse droid following me around everywhere I went to catalog my movements. But maybe that was how Tzymo wanted me to feel; maybe his mandate was more psychological warfare than anything. I knew he could make good on his threats, though. I'd seen that much. But he had taken a strange liking to me, despite what I thought was my lack of qualification. He seemed to have me figured out, which was more aggravating than waiting around for weeks for his instructions...

Instructions that had _finally _arrived.

The comm console beside me beeped importantly, and I brought the message up on the display screen. I read it two, three, _four _times to be sure I wasn't hallucinating...

_TARGET: Max Redgrave  
AGE: 7 GSY  
LAST KNOWN LOCATION: Paneau System  
__LAST KNOWN ASSOCIATE(S): Soran Redgrave, spice dealer  
OBJECTIVE(S): Acquire target. Return to Tzymo Labs on Coruscant. Alive.  
PAYMENT: 5 million_

I'm not sure how long I stared at the screen, wondering when I was going to wake up from such a perverse nightmare.

What in the _universe_ could Tzymo possibly want with Max? With a seven-year-old boy? Tzymo's dealings were with tangibles, but if he needed people to spill their secrets, he'd get more than a few middlemen to drag out the intel he wanted; he wouldn't do it himself. Even if he wasn't my nephew, I wouldn't bring a kid to Tzymo anyway, no matter what he paid me. Did he know Max's connection to Recero? Was he going to use Max against her? Against _me_?

I sat in horrified shock for what felt like an hour. I knew Tzymo was crazy, but not child-kidnapping-crazy. How was I going to get around him? I couldn't just send him a message back, _Sorry, I don't feel like doing that job_; he'd want to know why while he was strapping me to his research table to "experiment" on me. But if he didn't already know that Max is Recero's son, no amount of torture was going to get it out of me.

I swallowed hard. Though my mind was still reeling, I noticed my hands were shaking. I had never been so infuriated and terrified at the same time, and feeling both at once locked me in a weird daze. Before I even realized that I had moved, I was standing at a window, looking across the emptiness at Recero's building as my fist met the solid wall just to the side. The pain of the impact was enough to clear my mind and focus my resolve.

I didn't care that Tzymo could see my reaction on his surveillance cams, any more than I cared that I was leaving a trail of blood on his warehouse floor as it dripped off my split knuckles. Whether he knew it or not, he had sent me over the edge...and I wasn't coming back.

Until I could figure out how to take him down, he had seen his last of Horatio Sheridan.


End file.
